by Tim Jeal
Helen thought for a moment and then nodded.
‘On condition that the confession is destroyed in the event of your father’s death.’
Charles laughed grimly. How typical of the woman that at such a moment she should think of the inconvenience of such a document should she ever wish to marry again if widowed.
‘Very well. You will also write a letter to Mr Strickland this evening telling him that you will not see him again. I will post it myself. You will be watched until you leave the country so I would suggest that you do not try to meet him.’
She sank back into her chair and stared at him in agonised disbelief. Her eyes were brimming with tears.
‘Why are you doing this to me, Charles?’
‘Good God, Helen, I have the power to ruin you, yet I choose not to. Instead I ask two concessions on your part. I say nothing of your scandalous conduct and yet you reproach me for cruelty. Must I apologise for doing what I can to protect my father?’
She looked at him imploringly.
‘How can it benefit your father for me to be denied a last meeting with Mr Strickland?’
‘You would be tempted to plan further meetings.’
‘Which your spies will tell you about.’
‘They are not infallible.’
She got up and came closer to him, stretching out her hands in helpless supplication.
‘Let me see him and I will swear never to try to do so again. I will sign papers saying it, give any guarantee you wish; only let me see him once more; only that, Charles. One last time.’
He hesitated a moment, undecided.
‘What if he were to plead with you?’
‘I would not weaken. I know I would not.’
‘You’ve risked everything for him already. Nothing you say convinces me that you would not do the same again.’
She flicked a strand of hair from her eyes and turned abruptly.
‘You realise that I will go on writing to him if you prevent us meeting?’
‘I consider that a lesser danger. If you see nothing of him before your departure and then remain several months in Constantinople, your infatuation will pass.’
A long silence during which Charles saw her stare at him intently and shudder, as though through some secret revelation she had learned a new and terrible truth about him.
‘Why have you decided not to tell him about me? Because by my marriage I will be separated from Tom? You could not endure my love for him.’
‘The truth would have destroyed my father. There is no other reason.’ He got up with trembling legs and shouted: ‘None, do you hear me? None.’
She walked back to her chair and sat down again.
‘If you tell him, you lose your power over me. Well, don’t you?’ He said nothing and she gazed down reflectively, before murmuring: ‘You loved me once.’
He walked to the door, his cheeks still burning.
‘Any power I have is dependent on your behaviour. I shall return tomorrow for your letter to Strickland and will tell you the time to come to my solicitor’s.’
As he was going out into the dark corridor, she ran up behind him and caught his arm.
‘I will do anything to see him again. Anything; anything you wish.’
In the half-darkness of the passage he felt her clutching for his hand, but pulled it away violently, horrified in case she touched his mutilated fingers. With atrocious swiftness he felt her arms about his neck and her lips on his cheek. He shrank from her and groaned; then with a sudden movement seized her around the waist, and pushing her back against the wall, kissed her roughly, angrily, hating himself and yet unable to break away. She had not resisted or flinched from him – a martyr for her love of another man. The thought scorched through Charles’s brain as he ran blindly towards the stairs, stumbling in the darkness and cursing himself as he went.
*
Half-an-hour after his departure from Helen’s house, Charles was in Charlotte Street, knocking wildly at Tom Strickland’s door. Tom had barely time to recognise his visitor before seeing a flash of silver and feeling an explosion of pain on the side of his head. The blow from the knob of Charles’s cane caught him just above the temple and sent him reeling back into the hall. Charles stepped forward and slammed the door behind them both. Tom leant dazed against the wall, pretending to have been hurt more than he actually had been; not in the hope of avoiding further blows but in order to appear too far gone to be able to think or speak if questioned. He did not resist as Charles grasped him by the lapels and shook him.
‘D’you hear me, Strickland?’ Tom let his head sag forward and staggered as Charles released him. ‘If you see her again, I’ll kill you. Kill you, d’you hear?’
The only light in the hall was that cast by a street-lamp through the fan-light over the door. Charles’s face was thrust so close to his that Tom could feel his breath on his cheek. Still trembling with shock, Tom felt flickering sparks of anger fanned to bright rage as he caught Crawford’s expression of disgust and moral rectitude. The man saw nothing cowardly in bursting in and striking without warning; a son needing no recourse to fairness when defending his father’s honour, especially when the object of his punishment was a low-born artist – that would be the real cause for his revulsion: the fact that her ladyship had defiled herself by loving a man so far beneath her. In Crawford’s face Tom read the physical loathing of one class for another.
‘When you come to kill me, perhaps you’ll allow me a better chance to defend myself.’
Charles stepped back and favoured Tom with a derisive bow. Then he tossed him his cane.
‘Defend yourself now.’
The width of the man’s shoulders and his height momentarily sobered Tom but the fierce smarting of his head goaded him on. Charles was watching him with nonchalantly folded arms and a sneer on his lips. The sound of heavy footfalls came from the street; several men passing slowly just outside the door.
‘You could shout for help,’ Charles suggested scornfully.
For answer Tom smashed the heavy silver knob of the cane against the wall and threw down the splintered shaft.
‘You’re a fool, Strickland.’
Tom’s throat was as dry as chalk and he could hear the loud beating of his heart. Vague memories from his schooldays: punch straight, don’t swing wildly, watch your opponent’s hands. As Charles came towards him, Tom jabbed sharply at his white contorted face, catching him on the lower lip where beads of blood welled up at once. The next second Tom was sprawling from a heavy blow in the ribs; he almost twisted clear as Charles bore down on him with all his weight, but found himself pinioned by the ankles. As he writhed to get free, Charles caught his arm and twisted savagely until the joint cracked. Tom locked his teeth so as not to scream, certain that he would be forced to beg for mercy, and dreading that humiliation. The pain was agonising, and his will already weakening, when Charles unexpectedly released his hold and flung him forward, dashing his forehead against the rough wooden floor, stunning him for a moment. Tom lay still for several seconds, seeing from the corner of his eye Crawford’s polished boots planted close to his neck.
‘All you can take, eh, Strickland?’
The scorn of his voice lashed Tom like a whip. Furtively he braced his elbows on the floor, and then lunged sideways grabbing Crawford’s feet and bringing him down. Tom leapt up, but a scything kick on the shin hurled him back against the door. Charles slowly raised himself on one knee; he had evidently hurt himself in falling and was breathing hard. Seeing his chance, Tom sprang at him, expecting to topple him with ease, but instead meeting a rock-like shoulder. Tom staggered and then backed towards the stairs, knowing he would be no match for Crawford’s weight if he allowed him to pull him down.
As Charles advanced on him, head thrust forward and eyes narrowed to slits, Tom gulped in deep breaths and clenched his fists. Crawford came on with slow remorseless steps; his coat had been ripped and was hanging loosely on his massive shoulders; spots of blood
dotted his scarf. Tom landed only two ineffective punches before going down under a furious flurry of heavy blows, arms raised blindly to protect himself. As he sank to his knees, head lolling, another punch rocked him and he crashed back onto the stairs, and lay with limbs spread-eagled.
He was dimly aware of the taste of blood in his mouth and the distant sound of his laboured breathing. Charles’s face floated above him like a pale planet and then vanished.
When Tom regained consciousness, he was propped up at the foot of the stairs and Charles had gone. He listened to the faint hissing of the gas jet on the landing above and closed his eyes. His head was throbbing but not with the splitting pain he knew he would suffer later. Too dazed and weak to move he stayed where he was. Some half-remembered thought or idea troubled him … something to be done … something important; he knew that now … must go, must warn her … warn Helen. Helen. He clutched the banisters and raised himself only to fall back again, overcome by dizziness and nausea. He failed once more, and then, sobbing with frustration at his weakness, crawled towards the studio, where he lay prostrate and despairing on the dusty floor.
36
Tom paid the fly-man before reaching the gates of Hanley Park, having decided to finish his journey on foot. Once again he was looking up at the imposing wrought-iron gates, dominated by the massive central coat of arms and the heraldic griffins on the flanking piers. Only four months since that shimmering morning when he and Helen had driven out between them into the summer countryside. Now the leaves were falling and the air was damp and cold. Through a thick ground mist the elms in the park seemed to be floating rootless in a filmy silver sea. Tom fumbled with the heavy ring-handle and pushed the dew-moist metal bars, but even when he had withdrawn the lower bolts, the gates would not move. He was reluctant to bring out the gate-keeper to unlock them, in case the servant asked him his business, and on learning it, told him that he need proceed no further since her ladyship was away. Instead Tom clambered over the stone wall and dropped down onto the grass. A rabbit stared at him, hunched and frozen for a moment, before bounding away into a tangle of bushes. At its zenith above the mist, the sky was a pearly blue; later the sun would shine. Tom started in the direction of the house, and soon saw the indistinct white outline of the façade.
*
Tom had not been strong enough to leave his bed for two days after Charles’s visit, and on that second day, he had received a short cold letter from Helen. In it she had stated that Charles had found out about them, but would take no action against her if no further meetings took place. She had reluctantly promised to abide by this condition and had left London. Tom had been sure that the curtness of the note was no true reflection of Helen’s feelings. He had thought it probable that Charles had dictated it; but whether written under duress or not, Helen clearly intended to go through with her marriage. It was the end of their affair, and bitter and agonised though he had been, Tom had accepted it. From the beginning he had known the inevitable outcome; yet the manner of its coming had filled him with rebellious anger. He was haunted by the thought that she had known even while they had been at Barford and had not had the courage and honesty to tell him. Now his only happy days with her seemed transformed into a fool’s paradise. She had owed him nothing except a single duty: to tell him in person when the moment of parting had come. But she had found it easier to accept Charles’s terms; preferring to embalm the memory of her happiness, than to risk clouding it with the tears and possible anger of a last meeting. If she had thought of him rather than herself, she would have warned him at once about Charles, and thus have prepared him for that gentleman’s sudden appearance. Perhaps as Magnus had suggested, she had merely used him; perhaps Magnus’s picture of her had been the true one. But when Tom thought of her, his resentment melted and he could not accept this. He still loved her, and feared he always might. Regardless of Charles’s threats, he would see Helen once more, and whatever the hurt, they would part knowing each other’s feelings and openly acknowledging their loss. She had started their intimacy and she should end it – in person.
Tom had thought initially that, in spite of her claim to have left London, she was still there. He had bribed the only remaining servant in the Belgravia house to show him every room, and only then had he been convinced that she had gone. Next he had written to her at Hanley Park in the hope that, if she were not there, his letter would be sent on to her. He had said that if he did not hear from her within two weeks he would come to Hanley Park to make inquiries about her. He had received no answer.
*
Tom paused a moment as the butler led him through the ante-room where Helen had sat for him. The two ivory chairs, the green and white marble mantelpiece and the painted ceiling reminded him vividly of the tense hours they had spent together in this room and made his heart ache for her. Already the butler had told him that she was away.
With the first shock of hearing that Tom had come, Catherine had immediately feared that Magnus had told him by whom he had been betrayed, but remembering her brother’s absolute denial of any intention to warn his friend, she had breathed more freely. She received him in the Red Drawing Room and was at once troubled by his haggard face and shocked to see dark bruises beneath one eye and across a cheek. Tom noticed the direction of her gaze.
‘Your brother called on me, Miss Crawford.’
‘For what reason?’
‘You know well enough, madam. You made your suspicions clear even when I was staying here.’ He fixed her with burning eyes and came closer. ‘Where is she? Tell me, Catherine. I must know.’
‘She came a week ago to take Humphrey to Chatham. She will have sailed for Malta by now.’
She followed him as he moved blindly towards the door.
‘You must not go after her.’
‘In case your brother kills me?’ he shouted.
She shook her head and murmured:
‘They would be married before you reached Valetta.’
‘How do I believe you? Your brother told you to say this if I came here.’
Catherine left the room and returned some minutes later with a newspaper. She handed it to him folded back at the middle page; a paragraph was marked under Service Appointments.
‘Rear-Admiral Sir James Crawford Bart., K.C.B., formerly Commander-in-Chief, North American Station and Rear-Admiral of the Blue, to be Second in Command Mediterranean Fleet and Rear-Admiral of the White, with effect from 1 November. Captain the Hon. H. Broughton C.B., H.M.S. Retribution, is appointed Flag-Captain….’
Tom dropped the paper on a chair and remained staring at the floor; thinking that Helen would have known this at Barford; that in this too she had deceived him, as she had done over Charles’s knowledge. Even when they had read about the Sultan’s declaration of war on Russia, she had lied to him, saying that she did not think it likely that the British and French fleets would enter the Bosphorus and the Black Sea for several months. Yet the haste of her departure and Sir James’s desire to marry at once was clear proof of the destination of the fleet; and she would have known, and yet had said nothing; nothing. His anger passed and he was paralysed by a merciful numbness; a feeling of such emptiness and desolation that he felt no more pain; only a strange light-headedness as though he were drunk. He heard Catherine saying:
‘If there is anything I can do….’
He found himself staring at the portrait over the opposite door: Rembrandt’s Head of a Jew.
‘Do?’ he asked, confused.
‘Anything you might like me to say to her?’
He shrugged his shoulders and was silent a moment.
‘Tell her….’ He broke off and gazed again at the portrait and felt tears pricking under his lids. Rembrandt, the miller’s son, fashionable for a time, then bankrupt, and painting, in lieu of payment, the Jews who lent him money. Two hundred years ago, and he was remembered; and who was Rear-Admiral of the Red, Vice-Admiral of the White or Lord High Admiral then? ‘… tell her,’ he said po
inting, ‘to hang that painting where it can be seen.’
*
Walking again through the misty park, Tom felt a dull incomprehension. He was sure that Helen’s sudden flight and marriage had been hurried on by the approaching war. While he had thought only of her, had she been so mesmerised by reading of the comings and goings of diplomats and ministers with their treaties, telegraphic messages and protocols that she had come to believe that such things demanded reverence rather than hatred and derision? If no exchanges had ever taken place between Constantinople, St Petersburg and London would the ordinary people of England and Russia have made up their minds spontaneously to attack one another? The answer was glaringly obvious; and yet nobody derided the ministers and officers, who claimed to be so concerned to prevent events which could never take place if they were to stop preparing for them. But prepare they would, and in due course the fighting would begin.
Sooner or later good-natured men would be leaving homes, some of them only miles from the gates of the silent park, consenting to part with parents, wives and children, and to embark for a distant country where they would try to kill people with whom they could have no possible quarrel. But they would go; they would march, denying common sense and conscience, as all men must who promise unquestioning obedience in the service of a cause they do not understand.
Did life mean so little to so many that they would connive in making shadows of themselves, consigning present passions to forgotten memories? Abandoning future hopes as though what they had once wished from life had already gone? No, he thought – for them the bands and flags, the hoarse shouts of command and the hope of glory. How easy for the disappointed lover to see the actions of others only in terms of his own despair. There would be as many reasons for fighting as for loving.
All through the summer, the eastern crisis had seemed remote and trivial in comparison with his love for Helen. But now he saw its true proportion. Whether brought about by folly or blindness, the results would be real enough. Already his own life and Helen’s had been touched and diminished by its lengthening shadow; others would soon feel the same chill sense of their own insignificance.
